The Sweet Life of Little Ones

I was reading my friend Kristen's blog, and her post today, "Things I Will Miss Someday" and it inspired me to write my own. You can read her blog here http://chinacat.dnsalias.org/roller/sunfrog/

So here is my own list of things that I love more than anything now and that I know will not always be. My little guys are growing up. One day they will fall in love, explore the world and make their way. I want my boys to grow up feeling safe, loved and happy. I want them to have confidence in themselves, adventure in their hearts and the strength to put themselves out there and take risks. I know that I will always be important to them, but I will not always be the center of their little world. Here are some things that I will most definitely miss.

I will miss the cuddles that I get while breastfeeding. That snuggle time is the best. The whole world seems to stop while your little one is craddled in your arms, happily eating and reaching up to grab your face. Pure contentment.

Warm, little bare feet in my bed. We have co-slept with both of our little guys. Little Man is off in his own room, in his own "big boy bed", but Baby Boy still spends the second half of his night cuddled up next to me. I will miss waking up, leaning over and hearing his soft breathing while sound asleep. Oh and those cute little morning smiles when we both wake up.

My boys adorable little voices. I know their voices are only going to get deeper and more grown-up, so I try to remember all of their cute little giggles and songs now.

Mixed-up little toddler/preschooler sayings. I crack up at all of my son's little "translations". For example he calls taxi cabs, "cabbage cars", and deodorant, "deodor-ade".

Sleepy face rubs. I will miss seeing Baby Boy ball up his little fists and run his eyes when fatigue sets in.

Naps with my boys. Nothing beats snuggling up with them on a rainy day, reading some books and taking a snooze.

Silly Dance Time. On a weekly basis, we put on some music, each grab a musical instrument and sing and dance ourselves silly. This is my older son's favorite time in the world, mine too. I know one day they will think this is beyond lame, but for now it is nothing but pure happiness and glee.

The un-jaded heart of a little one. I LOVE how my little guy will get excited for just about everything. You can tell him you're going to the library and he will jump for joy (even though we go 1-2 times a week...) A three year-old still gets so excited about an extra book before bed or making pancakes with mom on a lazy Sunday morning. A 16 year-old? Not so much.

Matchbox cars/Hot Wheels in every room and cabinet in the house.

Messy morning bed head.

The joy on my son's face when he sees me pick him up from school and the first big bear hug that I get when he sees me.

Baby giggles in a bubble bath. And all of the happy splashing that goes with it.

Cute little baby butts crawling across the floor after a bath. (And the mad dash he makes, FULL of giggles when he see me chasing after him).

Running through the sprinkler, with shrieks of joy, on a hot summer day. Followed by an ice cream cone, naturally.

I will miss my older son as a three year-old and my younger boy as a 12 month-old. Next year, they will be different little people, and so on for each year after that. Only now can I enjoy them at this age and all of the adorable quirks and joys that go with it. I embrace and love it all. Why can't we bottle some up to enjoy later? Ten to twenty years from now, I could go, grab that bottle from January 30, 2010, dust it off and enjoy Little Man splashing in his bath, getting into train flannel PJ's and telling me that he can't eat kale because "it is meant for rabbits not boys". I'd get to hear Baby Boy giggle with delight whenever I smell his stinky feet, sweet kisses on my face, his entire face red with tomato sauce from dinner and a head full of blond, bouncy curls.

I will miss it all, absolutely all of it. I love my life, I love my boys and I get teary-eyed just thinking about them growing up. This is just the perfect age for them to be. I can love them and they think Mommy and Daddy are just the coolest. Who can beat that? I will truly miss every beautiful, crazy thing about our life right now. I love it and I hope they grow up knowing how much I love my life with them. I love being their mommy and not a moment of my life goes un-appreciated. A mother's love just may be the most powerful thing there is or ever was.

Oh, and I'll also miss the little pitter-pat of footie pajamas running to my bedroom door each morning to say, "Wake Up, Mommy! It's a brand new day!". It certainly is, my beautiful boy.

*Get inspired and write your list,too. If you do post, share your address in the comments. If you don't have a blog, just share some here anyway. :) *

What Am I Teaching This Kid?

I have the utter inability to contain my laughter, even in the most inappropriate of situations. I have a long history of laughing at the worst times during a lecture or reinforcing naughty behavior in my kids. I truly cannot help it. Try as I might, I cannot build an inner dam strong enough to hold back my giggles. My husband says that there is no hope for me and he's right . Our son is a really sweet, empathetic, well-behaved kid (like his mom, he's not a rule-breaker) but he has had some moments at school where he has been the "silly kid" or shall we say, "class clown". I think some responsibility for that lays directly on my shoulders. A little on my history...

As far back as I can remember, I was always getting in trouble for laughing in class. I was never a rule-breaker (still to this day), but I did get disciplined for fighting the laughs. I would try everything to stop myself, biting the insides of my cheeks, stabbing my pencil into my leg, thinking about something sad and dire, but nothing worked. I can still laugh today thinking back to my Freshman year in high school. One day, my language arts teacher decided to spice things up in class a bit and wake us up from our boredom by acting out a fight scene from Romeo and Juliet. With great fervor, he attacked a chair with a ruler. In doing so, he slipped, fell, and farted. Come on, how could I possibly NOT laugh? Here's the thing though. I nicknamed him "Mr Butterbuns" and laughed about it every single day for the rest of the year. Everyday, I walked into class and swore that I wouldn't laugh, and I failed, BIG TIME. Fast forward 10 years when I am in class, as a 24-year old, getting my teaching credential (oh, the irony!). I am in class when my friend starts making some lame jokes about farting on my toothbrush (unfortunately, you read that right). Oh no, the tidal wave of laughs was unleashed. Yes, I have a very sophisticated sense of humor. I know it's a total dud of a joke now, but for some reason, it hit me that day. Here's the worst part, the next day our professor approaches us, very upset. Of course, she addresses me as the main part of her problem. "I know you were laughing in class yesterday and I think it's wrong and inappropriate to laugh at my accent. English is my second language." Oh no, do I really have to explain this? I'd rather by known as a girl with a base-level sense of humor than what she was suggesting. I had to come clean (it was mortifying). "Listen, I would never laugh at someones accent. I am telling you the truth when I say that I was laughing at a very childish, crude joke." She pushed me further and I had to admit that I laughed at the idea of flatulence of a dental hygiene device. She looked at me with such disgust. Not only did she think I was a liar but was that really the best that I could come up with?

I got in trouble so many times over the years. I would fight back my giggles during meetings with my boss, who was the VP of the company (it was only the two us in the meeting, too, I'm pathetic). To this day, I laugh during every massage that I get because I think back to a story that my friend told to me. During a rubdown, his masseuse bent his knees to his stomach, causing him to cut the cheese on the table. HA! I will laugh at the weirdest times during a massage just thinking about it and have to awkwardly say, "Sorry, I am just ticklish". Even when they are like 6 feet away...

I can't control my responses when I am the student and I even have trouble even when I am the teacher. I had a group of 4th graders that named their team, "Cheetah's Anus". I told them to try again and to be more appropriate. Their next attempt was "Rings Around UrANUS". I bolted from the table and pretended to reorganize a cabinet while I pulled myself together. I really am the worst! Don't get me started about the time a kindergartner dropped an F-bomb in class.

With Little Man, I have to pull in my husband when my son says something funny but not something we want him to repeat. I found out this summer that my problem is genetic (it's not my fault! right?). My Dad was sitting at the dinner table with us when Little Man said something hilarious (but not acceptable). As I was explaining to my son why he couldn't say that, I look to my dad, laughing quietly with a dish towel over his head to hide his reaction. I was doomed from birth, really. When out to dinner one night, my son farted (accidentally) at the dinner table in front of our waiter. I said, "what do you say?" which is my prompt for him to say "excuse me". Instead he said, "Mommy, it's not nice to blame your farts on me." HA HA HA! That is funny stuff! But it's not nice to lie, and I couldn't encourage that. Especially with the waiter looking at me like I was the lowest of the low, blaming my gas on my son. Cue my exit to the bathroom while my husband stepped in. I'm worthless in these situations. If you're funny, mommy cannot tell you no without a suppressed grin on her face. Last summer, my son walked into school and told his teacher that his brother "Likes to cut the Babybels"! I was dying! Get it? Babybels, like mini-cheeses because he's a baby and his farts are tiny? Too funny. My son's teachers had to stop him from rhyming kid's names into nicknames after he came up with "Tuna" for one girl in class. The poor girl! The worst part is that the first time his teacher told me about it, you can only guess my reaction...

Ralph and Chuck: Our Unwanted House Guests

The dreaded rotavirus struck our house again. Just the mere mention of nausea or puking will give me the sweats and send me into a state of panic. I loathe the stomach flu (who doesn't?). Not only do I loathe puking, but I am practically phobic of the act. Some people fear spiders, some fear heights, I fear puking. In college, many friends of mine were puking on a weekly basis from over-consumption of booze. I made sure to always keep myself just shy of that debauchery because I was so terrified of throwing up. Everything about it is misery. Those few hours of feeling "off", and then the slow and steady build-up to ralphing. Ugh. I am a person who has the pain drawn out particularly long (or maybe I am that much of a drama queen to believe that it is drawn out especially long, just for me). I am laying on the bathroom tiles, begging for the contents of my stomach to explode forth, but my stomach just teases me with gags, on agonizing end, until I finally get the pleasure of getting the act over with. Yuck.



My phobia of gastroenteritis never affects my parenting. I am always there to soothe our children when they get a tummy bug, always. But the moment they first puke, I am in a full-blown state of hysteria on the inside. I am a calm, caring mommy on the outside and a total basket case on the inside. I purell and wash my hands like crazy and do everything I can to avoid the dreaded germs, but it's inevitable. There is not much you can do when your kids manage to puke on your body multiple times, each and every time they get sick. And like clockwork, a few days after their first upchuck appearance, mine soon follows. Never my husband, just me.



So, as a preface to this little tale of our fluid-filled house this week, I was a terrible, terrible mother. Just awful! A week and a half ago, Baby Boy celebrated his very first birthday. I stayed up late the night before to make him a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, from scratch (even the delicious frosting). I was excited because the tradition in our house is cake for breakfast on the day of one's birthday. Baby Boy woke up and we slowly got ourselves and Grandpa (who was in town visiting for the week) up to see our little baby dig into his very first cake. Little Man, his older brother, was in a bad mood from the moment he woke up that day. He told me that he didn't feel like celebrating his brother's birthday, at all, and did not want to sing, eat cake nor go to the Children's Museum. I was sure this was just a case of jealousy. Afterall, this was his first time of having to celebrate another kid's birthday in his own house. He told me that he had a stomach ache and I just didn't believe him. Everytime that I cuddled with Baby Boy and wished him a Happy 1st, Little Man would push him aside and try to get onto my lap. I reminded him about sharing attention and days and that one day soon he, too, would get a big birthday. He would mention again his tummy, and I brushed it aside. I am truly wretched (oy my mommy guilt!). Fast forward to all of us dressed and ready to go when Grandpa says "Little Man is not feeling well, maybe we should cancel" to which I replied, "No, it's a birthday jealousy-ache not a tummy ache". Not ten seconds later and Little Man was heard puking on his bed. OH MAN. I felt like the WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD. I am the queen mum when it comes to comforting my kids in time of illness. I hold them and let them sleep in my arms at night when they have a tummy bug because I know how awful they feel. I go without sleep and comfort to help them and this time I failed. Big time. He had told me all morning about his sick tummy and I ignored him. I really didn't know! Oh gosh, don't judge me too harshly! I made up for it after the fact. I promise that I did. The whole day got changed around and now Baby Boy can hold this over his brother's head for years to come, "You know, I got robbed of my first birthday because of you..."



Grandpa was here and helped a lot. He continued to drink from Little Man's cup and share his food the entire time that Little Man was sick. I thought it was absolute lunacy, but my father-in-law assured me, "Nah, I won't get sick." I practically bathed in bleach and this guy was sharing drinks with my son. Guess who got sick and who didn't? So this week, all the rest of us got sick (except Grandpa) and it sucked. Baby Boy handled his first tummy bug like a champ. Not a minute after puking all over his bed and he was back to giggling and being his cheerful self. This was at 3am, too. We're out of the woods now and I am hoping that ralph and chuck don't show up for, at least, another year. Oh stomach flu karma, be kind to me! Okay that sounded incredibly selfish. Let's try this again, oh stomach flu karma be kind to my family!



And on a side note, if you have littles ones in your house and want a nice bonding moment to share with them, dance to Justin Roberts, "In the Car". It's truly special. Hold them tight, let the world rest and enjoy the time together.